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Tom Yum Soup

Mar 9th, 2010 by Madelin

Yummy eats today!

I spun for 30 minutes on Level 5 reading my Shape mag, stretched then came up to leftover Vegetable and Barley Stew for lunch.

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With 2 Vita-weats and a glass of sugar free Pink Grapefruit cordial which I am a little obsessed with. It has no artificial flavourings or colours but does have aspartame in it. I don’t have it every day so I’m not that concerned though I try to avoid artificial sweeteners most of the time.

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I also added some broccoli and the last of our spinach.

Afternoon snack was a bowl of this cereal which Adam bought a while back but I hadn’t tried because I generally don’t like Banana flavoured anything (I like fresh bananas!). It was pretty nice actually but had a lot going on in it

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and went a bit mushy. I was super hungry for this bowl and it filled me up nicely.

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For dinner tonight I made Tom Yum Soup from scratch! Go me! Tom Yum is probably one of my favourite Thai foods but it can be very oily at restaurants. This barely has any fat and tastes awesome! I used this Soup Mix I picked up at Park n Shop.

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This version is also vegan!

In the mix:

  • 1 Massel salt reduced Veggie stock cube and 6 cups of water (or 6 cups of vegetable stock)
  • 4 small sticks of lemongrass, each end removed
  • 6 red chillis
  • 3 whole kaffir lime leaves (this is about 10-12 actual leaf pieces)
  • 1 knob of Galangal or ginger, finely sliced
  • bunch of coriander, chopped
  • 1 t chilli paste in oil
  • juice of 1 lime
  • 2 T reduced salt soy sauce
  • 1 small shallot, minced
  • 10 cherry tomatoes
  • 1 cup of Enoki mushrooms
  • 300g firm tofu, cubed (or chicken or prawns)

The fragrant lemongrass (ends cut off)

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It’s super easy too! Just bash the lemongrass sticks with a mallet OR if you don’t have a mallet (who does?) use an empty jar like I did. You do this to release the flavour of the lemongrass.

Throw the bashed lemograss in a pot with the stock, the whole chillis, the Kafir lime leaves, the galangal, the shallots

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and bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling and the broth is getting fragrant (about 10 minutes), add the chilli paste, soy sauce, tofu, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms and bring back to the boil.

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Lastly add the coriander and the juice of the lime. Then do a taste test and if you like it spicier add more chilli paste. If you like it sweeter add a little brown sugar. If its too spicy or sweet add some more lime juice. All up it needs about 20 to 30 minutes on the boil to reach the right flavour.

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I left my lemongrass in the bowl but you don’t eat it so it can be pulled out before serving. This soup has a flavour punch and is super healthy! And the Enoki mushrooms are like noodles when they are cooked but virtually calorie free. Adam added some vermicelli to his which beefed it up a bit.

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Check out the stats! This makes makes 3 serves (1 for me and 2 for Adam).

Cals

Fat

Sat. Fat

Prot.

Carb.

Sugar

Fibre

104

3.4

0.5

7.4

9.1

4.7

5.6

I can’t quite believe the fibre count there but it’s all from the chilli’s apparently. I would ignore it really because I didn’t even eat any of the chilli’s – they were just for flavour.

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Fugi apple for dessert :) .

I will leave you with some cute pics of my Dad’s new baby calves. His cows have had 7 calves now in total. Aren’t they cute!

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New Image

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Definitely time for a coffee

Mar 9th, 2010 by Madelin

Our place is in a bit of a shambles this morning! We had our new stuff delivered yesterday but that meant our bookshelf had to be transferred to one of the bedrooms and… it doesn’t fit. We can’t even get it in the doorway. So that needs to be dismantled and put back together in the spare bedroom and let me tell you Adam is not happy about that! Putting Ikea stuff together is difficult let alone dismantling an Expedit bookshelf then putting it back together. So yes, it looks like a bomb hit the apartment. Then Little pushed over our full length mirror which shattered into a gazillion shards of glass. Awesome!

Plus we planned to get up early and hit the gym before Adam went to work and we both just turned off our alarms and kept sleeping. We are both exhausted today for some reason.

My breakfast was nice though! This was 1 cup of Natures Path Optimum Slim with skim milk. 

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I really like this cereal and am enjoying eating cereal again after that long stretch of hot breakfasts. I think it’s the wafers and the rice bubble things I like about this one. IMG_4106  

Plus I had a tiny smiling banana.

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My morning snack was a Fage with some applesauce and a Nespresso homemade latte. It was definitely time for a coffee by then.

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Anyway, I’m going down to the gym to spin and read Shape and have pretty much a full day of stuff to do on the computer. Plus I need to sort out the stuff that was on the bookshelf and is now all over the dining table and floor… Awesome. So I better get to it.

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On the run

Mar 8th, 2010 by Madelin

I’m back on the running wagon!

After over a week off running to rest my hips I ventured back to the treadmill this morning, rather hesitantly. I warmed up with a 5 minute walk at about 5kph and then once I was sure my hips were ok, I set off for a long slow 10km. Ran at 9kph and took 2 stretching breaks during the run. In all, the distance I covered was 10.04km in 67.33 mins. Afterwards I cooled down by walking till I hit the 70 minute mark. Sense and Sensibility passed the time today :) . Following that I stretched and did some abs. My hips felt tight but there was no pinching whatsoever! Yip yip!

Before my run I had a container of Fage with this beautiful Fugi apple from the lobby fruit bowl.

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Chopped up on top of the Greek yog.

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Delicious.

After my run I made a huge salad for lunch. In the mix:

  • baby spinach
  • steamed broccoli
  • baby carrots
  • salsa
  • 1/2 cup egg white fluffy
  • Cholula

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My afternoon snack was a tiny banana and a coffee I picked up at Graze.

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While I was cleaning up round the house and waiting for our furniture delivery, I had another before dinner snack. 4 Vita-Weats spread with some goats cheese.

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Tonight I made a recipe I found in the latest edition of Shape (March 2010).

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This meal was vegan and awesome! It was thick, flavourful and hearty. It’s a winner :) . I changed the recipe just a little just based on what I had to hand, so my modifications included:

  • I used 2 cans of diced tomatoes
  • 1 used 2 cups of Libby’s canned pumpkin instead of the chopped butternut pumpkin and the parsnip which I couldn’t find at the shops

I added the second can of tomatoes because the pumpkin flavour ended up being very strong and the second can of tomatoes mellowed it. I also cooked it a lot longer than the recipe called for because I wanted it more like a stew than a soup (it was quite watery at the 45 minute mark) and I had time to kill.

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Up close

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The best part was the Chinese barley (Job’s Tears). So chewy and tender and bigger than standard pearl barley. Try it if you can find it!

Dessert was a small bowl of blueberries and some Ginger tea.  

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Night!

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Good start

Mar 8th, 2010 by Madelin

Morning morning!

Monday again? Crazy! So I made a good start this morning with a half and half bowl of Natures Path Synergy 8 grains and All Bran with skim milk and a cup of Rooibos. 

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And now I’m watching the Oscar’s red carpet while cleaning the apartment. Seriously, what a great day :) . I’m planning to head down to the gym after the red carpet ends.

We have a fun week coming up! Thursday night we fly to Sydney for our friends’ Saul and Cath’s wedding. Adam is in the bridal party so it is going to be a busy and exciting weekend!

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Carb fest

Mar 7th, 2010 by Madelin

Ick, I feel a bit gross tonight. I’ve overeaten, haven’t exercised and just feel blah :( . Mostly likely because veggies and fruit haven’t passed my lips today…

It seems like I’m on this up and down path at the moment here in Hong Kong. Some days I eat well and feel great and others I just over do it and feel like crap. The up and down is well… getting me down a bit. I feel like I need to regroup and refocus and get some balance across the board. I think part of this stems from the fact that I don’t have a race on the horizon (and thus a purpose to train) and I’m not in a regular running routine. I just need some consistency… so I’ll be striving for this in the coming weeks.

Anyway, enough ramblings. Just some thoughts on where I’m at…

So we got our sleepy selves up to Dragon-I to meet friends for a Dim Sum brunch. Here are some shots of our selections. We ordered lots! But there were 6 of us and it was all quite delicious.

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I had a taste of pretty much everything and was reasonably full when I left. But I ate a bit too much fried stuff that I normally wouldn’t have and had that icky aftertaste in my mouth all afternoon.

Made a new furry friend – meet Lulu. Our friends were babysitting Lulu (for their friends) this weekend. What a cutie! Lulu was so well behaved and sat patiently under the table all through our brunch.

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After brunch we bought some cool new furniture pieces from Homeless. A new TV bench and a sideboard type thing. They are being delivered tomorrow so we are pretty excited!

In the afternoon I felt like something sweet and had a cranberry and walnut mini fruit loaf from a little bakery on Wellington Street. 

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Twas lovely!

And dinner was more carbs. We had some fresh pasta in the fridge which I made up with a jar of Barilla pasta sauce. Cheats pasta but seriously tasty. Just a small bowl for me with some sharp parmesan on top. 

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Finished off with a bowl of Fage and some applesauce and honey.

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So, back to my opening thoughts. I am thinking that part of this unbalanced feeling I am experiencing is also due to sugar. I feel like my sweet tooth has just ratcheted up a few levels over the past few months. I am definitely eating more sugar than I did, say at the end of last year, before we went on holiday. And you know what, the more sugar I eat, the more I seem to want it. I seem to crave sweet breakfasts and snacks (dried fruit, fro-yo) all the time lately and once I have eaten something savoury I usually want something sweet to counter the savoury taste. You know what I mean? This didn’t really used to happen to me. SOOOOO – what am I going to do about this? Well starting tomorrow I’m going to try to cut back on the sugar. I’m going to go back to plain cereal during the week and save oats and oatbran for the weekends. I may also introduce some egg white fluffy’s for breakfast too. Also, I’m going to try going back to more fruit and veggie based snacks (eg. carrots and hummus) rather than relying on muesli bars all the time. I used to eat a lot of cottage cheese as a snack back in Oz but I can’t get any good cottage cheese over here so that isn’t an option. I’ll do some research on some more interesting savoury snacks.

Again, that’s enough rambling for tonight. Catch you in the morn.

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Poker face

Mar 7th, 2010 by Madelin

Don’t you just love that song? I do!

Well, last night turned into an impromptu poker night for the guys at 11.30pm. Hence, we did not leave our friends’ place till after 2.30am (last time I looked at my watch). Yikes! That is way too late for this nana. Naturally, I am completely zonked but I can never sleep past 9ish so up I am.

To backtrack, we had a nice lunch yesterday after hitting the gym in the morning. Adam did Week 4, Part 2 of the Couch to 5k programme and I did a sweaty 40 minutes on the Elliptical, Level 8 while watching Philadelphia, then some stretching. Philadelphia is such an engrossing moving and I haven’t watched it for years, so it passed the time quickly.

Lunch was quick and healthy at Eat Right. I got the Cuban bean and brown basmati rice salad.

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Wowee, this was yum! And vegan. I am recreating asap! From what I could see it was avocado, kidney beans, tomato, red onion, coriander and brown basmati, with some Cuban seasoning. Delicious. And 380 calories. Yip yip!

Adam had the avocado and haloumi burger which he loved!

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Yay for healthy veggie meals :) .

We headed to Causeway Bay for the afternoon and stopped by a local bar called Nirvana on our walk home. I had a pint of Tsing Tao beer. Twas refreshing in the heat. We also stopped in at our little French wine and cheese store Monsieur Chatte and picked up some goats cheese for a little snack.

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This was a goats cheese camembert. It was yum, more like a white castello in taste though. I prefer the normal taste of Chevre goats cheese better than this. We had it with some bread from Catherine Bakery (heaven!). I had 2 pieces of cheese with 2 very thin slices of bread.

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Then we went to our friends place for dinner but I FORGOT MY CAMERA :( . I’m sorry! We were too far gone to go back so I just decided to forget about snapping photos and just enjoy the night. Dinner was Indian food from a nearby place and I had a little taste of rice with Butter Chicken, Okra and a Lamb Korma type thing plus a few pieces of beautiful Naan. Dessert was heavenly! Emily picked up some coconut ice cream from Great and I need to get it asap. It was one of the best things that has ever touched my lips. Oh my! I also feasted on too many Lindt chocolate squares and felt a bit sick once I got to bed :( . I’m really not the biggest chocolate fan and my stomach doesn’t like it much. Luckily I didn’t drink too much wine last night so apart from the lack of sleep I feel pretty ok this morning.

Breakfast was a perfect Nespresso Latte

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and 1/2 of this scone from Catherine Bakery, which I shared with Adam. Yum yum!

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We are off to dim sum brunch with some friends – enjoy your Sunday :) .

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Breakfast fail

Mar 6th, 2010 by Madelin

I’m back again to confess a complete breakfast fail!

Last night I thought I would use up some of the canned pumpkin in the fridge with overnight pumpkin oats. Unfortunately, I didn’t use a recipe which I probably should have. I won’t even bother with giving you the mix cause it tasted like CRAP! Even honey on top didn’t help it. Adam spat it in the sink after 1 mouthfull! I will have to read up on some pumpkin overnight oat recipes.

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So that went in the bin and I had some Natures Path Synergy cereal instead. This was 2 serves according to the box.

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That is, 60g of cereal. Doesn’t seem like much?

Adam made me a coffee – check out the foam!!! Holy moly. I need some chocolate powder.

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Snackity snack was half of a huge Fugi apple from the fruit bowl in our lobby.

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We are going to a friends place for dinner tonight which should be fun :) .

Off to enjoy the day!

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Pho at Lian

Mar 6th, 2010 by Madelin

Sorry I didn’t post last night. We started watching Fool’s Gold and then I got really tired and just wanted to go to bed. No worries, here I am!

Before I met Adam for lunch I went down to the gym. I did an easy 30 minute cycle on the upright bike and then a bunch of hip stretches. I felt fine after that so hopped on the Elliptical and did another 20 minutes on that. I kept the resistance on both machines really low and took it easy. It was good to get my legs moving! I ran out of time for yoga though and wasn’t really in the mood to be honest.

So lunch yesterday was yum! I had a custom salad at Dressed Salads. In the mix was romaine, avocado, cherry tomatoes, white beans, cucumber and goats cheese.

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After lunch Adam and I went to YoMama for some fro-yo. I got original with mango. Very refreshing!

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The mango was super ripe.

Later in the afternoon I met Adam and his work friends up at the Red bar at IFC. It’s a huge outdoor bar on top of the mall with speccy views of Hong Kong and out to Kowloon! It was really fun and we think we’ll go back there a lot in the summer. Did you know the building to the right was in the latest Batman movie?

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Typical cloud we are having at the moment but it’s only rained once or twice in the 7 weeks we’ve been here. Weird!

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I enjoyed a nice cold glass of Montana Sav Blanc in the balmy weather.

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I’ve got a mega blister on my heel from a new pair of shoes, so I didn’t want to walk far for dinner. We ended up just going downstairs in the IFC mall for Vietnamese on a recommendation of one of Adam’s colleagues. The restaurant was called Lian and we sat up at the bar! It was fun to watch the staff prep drinks and food :) .
Sorry the pics are so dark.

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We shared 2 starters – this was pork and prawn rice paper rolls and they were DIVINE! They were served warm and had lots of peanuts on top.

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And soft shell crab rolls. These were ok but not as nice as the warm rice paper rolls.

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I had 2 pieces of each.

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Adam got a beef Pho which he LOVED!

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And I got the vegetarian Pho which was full of lovely veggies and noodles but the broth was a bit flavourless unfortunately. I ate a fair bit of it but Adam finished off my noodles and mushrooms. Overall, it was a really nice meal though and not expensive. A great Friday night!

We were thinking about dessert but in the end I just wanted more yog. I can’t help it I love the stuff! A container of Fage with some honey. Simple and sweet.

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I also got some new tea yesterday!

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I’ve been searching for a plain ginger tea (not green or flavoured) and this stuff is awesome. It really packs a punch. I had 2 cups (1 bag) while watching the movie.

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An enormous cereal bowl

Mar 5th, 2010 by Madelin

Good morning!

Today I had a great breakfast of mixed cereal. Sometimes I crave cereal, other times not. Lately I’ve been wanting hot breakfasts but now that it is starting to warm up here in Hong Kong, I might turn back to the trusty cereal. I plan to smuggle many many boxes of Vogel’s back with me from Sydney next weekend too!

In the mix:

  • 1 cup Kashi Go Lean
  • 3/4 cup Natures Path Synergy

and to use up my leftover milk, the last of our Natures Path Cinnamon Blueberry (maybe 1/2 a cup).

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Like I said, enormous!

Full, full, full.

I’m going to go sit on the bike in the gym and spin out my tight legs, then do some stretching. Then I have a yoga class and am meeting Adam for lunch later on at Dressed Salads.

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Sweet dinner

Mar 4th, 2010 by Madelin

Oh gosh, what a tear jerker! Highly recommend Rachel Getting Married. What a great movie! Love Anne Hathaway.

So that last post was a bit depressing! Sorry about that. It’s not the end of the world – it’s only hair! I need to get over it :) .

Dinner was sweet. Sweet potato that is. A small sweet potato, baked at 200 Celsius for about 40 minutes, split in half and topped with goats cheese and salsa. Served on a bed of baby spinach and the last of the quinoa.

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Oh yum!

Dessert was another cookie with tea.

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These things are a bit too addictive for my pantry!

I was still really sore today, probably from the yoga so I had another complete rest day. May hit the bike tomorrow to loosen my legs, we’ll see. The hips are still tight and sore :( .

Going to chillax with Little, have a great Thursday night wherever you are.

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